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Turn N/A beer into beer with alcohol. Possible?
Hello,
I'm stationed in the Middle East where the Army gives us unlimited N/A beer. A few days ago, I was talking to an old soldier passing through, and he said that he used to turn N/A beer into beer with alcohol. He mentioned adding yeast and sugar to N/A beer and a couple of weeks later he would have a pretty good beer.
I'm not looking to win an award for best beer, but I would be awesome to be able to have a couple of beers with my friends out here. It is getting real hot here and a frosty beer sure sounds good.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this? What ingredients? Etc.... I will need to keep it real simple. Thanks!
Hey first of all, thanks for serving our country! You are all appreciated back home more than you think given the crap that the media is constantly portraying.
As far as making alcoholic beer from N/A beer, I'm assuming that you have sugar sources available like table sugar, honey, corn syrup, and maple syrup. Any one of those can be used to make alcohol by combining them with yeast. Sounds like you can get a hold of yeast as well? Bread yeast would work fine. To get beer that doesn't taste too much like jet fuel, I would add about 1 to 1.5 pounds of any of the above mentioned sugar sources to 1 gallon of your N/A beer and then chuck in some yeast. This will give you beer that has about 4.8% to 7.8% alcohol. Since you probably don't have a carboy with an airlock, it would probably work just as well to just let the fermenting beer sit in a plastic bucket with the lid sitting loosely in top. Leaving it in a cool place (70-75F or 21-24C) would be beneficial as well; too hot will also make jet fuel. Don't seal the bucket when fermenting or you'll end up with beer all over the barracks. Let it ferment for a week and dip your cups in for some now alcoholic beer. It will probably be mostly flat and a little warm, unless you refrigerate it, but it will have alcohol. In order to carbonate you'd need to bottle or keg it. If you can bottle it, just add a couple of tablespoons of table sugar per gallon of beer before bottling and in a week or two you'll have carbonated beer.
Like you say, this isn't going to be award winning beer by any sense of the word, but you'll have real beer. 
Good luck and let us know how it turns out if you try it. Cheers!
Thank you 1n1m3g for your kind words.
Also, thank you for your help with my project! A couple of questions...
About how much yeast per gallon?
Also, to make sure that I'm reading you right:
To get it a bit carbonated, after I let it ferment for about a week, then I put it in a sealed bottle with a couple of tablespoons of table sugar per gallon. At that point it is less likely to burst the bottle and have me "end up with beer all over the barracks". Right?
Again, thanks and cheers!
once you have added the sugar and yeast to the N/A beer and let it ferment for another week, adding the additional bit of sugar before you bottle it is called "priming".
you are basically adding a small amount of sugar for the yeast to eat, this will carbonate the beer. as long as you don't over prime, you won't get any exploding bottles.
the rule of thumb is 3/4 CUP of sugar per 5-gallons of beer. you can work out the teaspoon of sugar per bottle. the best way to do it is to dissolve the 3/4 cup of sugar in 16 oz of water. all you need to know is:
1 cup = 8 oz
1 pint = 16 oz
1 quart = 32 oz
1 gallon = 128 oz
2 cups = 1 pint
2 pints = 1 quart
4 quarts = 1 gallon
or if you prefer 1 litre = 33 oz = 1 quart 1 oz
good luck
Thank you.
Any suggestions on how much YEAST?
Thanks
When I use dry brewers yeast I use 1 or 2 packets (weighing about 11grams each) for a 5 gallon batch.
1n1m3g wrote:
Hey first of all, thanks for serving our country! You are all appreciated back home more than you think given the crap that the media is constantly portraying.
Second that 1n1m3g. Good to see folks supporting those in uniform regardless of ugly politics.
Just out of curiosity. What brands of NA brews can you get? Do you have access to things like 1 gal glass jugs (w/ screw-on caps), balloons (or something similar), plastic tubing, refridgerators.
DesertThirst wrote:
Hello,
I'm stationed in the Middle East where the Army gives us unlimited N/A beer. A few days ago, I was talking to an old soldier passing through, and he said that he used to turn N/A beer into beer with alcohol. He mentioned adding yeast and sugar to N/A beer and a couple of weeks later he would have a pretty good beer.
I'm not looking to win an award for best beer, but I would be awesome to be able to have a couple of beers with my friends out here. It is getting real hot here and a frosty beer sure sounds good.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this? What ingredients? Etc.... I will need to keep it real simple. Thanks!
Hooah.
Let us know how it works....and if you want to keep it semi cool (and away from NCO eyes) you can always dig a hole in the sand, pour some water in the hole, set your beer in it (sealed of course). and bury it over night. The evaporation should cool it down and keep it fairly cool till the next duty day is done.
Keep your head down.
Brewski,
To answer your questions:
I have access to Becks, Coors, and Holsten (German)
gal glass jugs (w/ screw-on caps) ............maybe,
balloons (or something similar) .............Yes,
plastic tubing, ................maybe
refridgerators................yes
Thanks